Dating : How to Know When Your Relationship is Over

When you get to be a certain age, you will inevitably have relationships come to an end. Some end in dramatic fashion, with yelling that makes the walls shake and tears that fall down your cheeks like rain. Some end with little fanfare, withering away like daylight fades when the sun sinks below the horizon. Two extremes that signal the same thing, the end of a caring partnership.

I’ve had relationships end in climactic ways. My marriage dissolved into screaming matches and accusations of indiscretions only a few weeks after we said I do. There were crying fits and things thrown out of rage that only ended after the proposal of divorce was agreed upon.

Once when I found out a boyfriend was cheating on me, I took my friends up on an invitation to go out and nurse my sorrows with a beer or three. We drank until our livers cursed us. We ended up in such a drunken stupor that when I found out he was spending the night with another woman, we drove to his house and threw a brick through his window. Not my proudest moment or something I suggest doing, but it was definitely a dramatic way to end things.

In my early twenties, I thought this was normal when it came to the end of relationships. Breakups occurred after days or weeks of fighting. Vicious words were exchanged, tears were shed, and eventually, you came to the conclusion that the relationship wasn’t worth fighting for anymore. I believed that if it didn’t end in fire and fury, then it didn’t mean anything at all. If the breakup didn’t shake you to the core and cause you to take to your bed for a week with sad songs cued up on repeat and a glass or four of wine we’re you really even in love?

Okay, maybe that last bit is a little cliche, but the truth is, not every relationship has to end in a scene befitting of a daytime soap opera.

Some Endings are Quiet

The end of a relationship doesn’t always come with a chorus of anger and resentment. Sometimes love fades away, softly and silently, with maybe a tear or two shed. Sometimes they end with hand-holding, cuddling, calm conversations, and the ability to remain friends.

When love ends quietly it doesn’t mean that it mattered any less than if it had ended in a massive fight. Perhaps, it even matters more. Love that ends calmly often happens when two people are still in love but for some reason, they can’t be together anymore.

Maybe a job takes one across the country or maybe for one the love just isn’t there anymore. Perhaps it is just the right time or you’re better off as only friends.

My last breakup ended quietly. I was moving out, a few states away, and instead of fighting, we spent the day holding each other. We laid in bed together and he wrapped his hands around my face. It felt more like a coming together than a breaking apart, with the two of us cuddled up in bed together, talking about what the future would be like and how things were going to change. Our conversation felt more honest than it ever had before. Maybe because we knew that there were no consequences to being completely honest.

Teardrops flowed down my face as I packed my things while he kept telling me that everything was going to be okay. But ending our relationship didn’t feel okay, even though at the time it was the right thing to do.

It wasn’t that we didn’t love each other, but our connection was broken. We had fallen into a pattern of fighting that wasn’t healthy, saying things we knew would hurt one another. We lashed out when we felt hurt, not resting until we had damaged the other because we had been hurt. It was unfair for us to stay together and keep destroying one another.

When we ended our relationship, we made a promise to get back together and we were only able to keep that promise because we knew to end our relationship when it was broken.

Some Endings take Time

The end of a relationship sometimes doesn’t happen right away. It may take months after you realize that you and your partner aren’t a match. Even when you do come to this realization it may take a while to come to terms with what it means and end the relationship.

Sometimes, you won’t know right away. Sometimes, your emotional connection can cloud your logical judgment. I have had breakups that seem to last for weeks, going back and forth about whether or not the person I was dating was right for me. In one particular relationship, I knew that my boyfriend and I didn’t match up, but when we were around each other and things were good between us, I haven’t ever had as much fun with anyone as I did with him. But when we were spending time together and things weren’t good between us, we were both miserable, picking and nagging at one another until a fight commenced between us.

Because we had such a good connection when things were going well, it was hard for me to walk away. I waited a while, maybe longer than I should have. In the end, my decision to end the relationship helped us both.

Some Endings are Easy

Ever since I watched Joey break up with Dawson I have been programmed to think that all breakups are hell. Watching the tears stream down Dawson’s face as a teenager, that was what breakups were supposed to look like. Breakups are supposed to shatter your entire world. They are supposed to shake you to your core.

When Elle Woods got dumped by her boyfriend, she took to her bed in such a state that her friends had to come to rescue her. Pop culture has been telling us since the very beginning that breakups are the worst.

The truth is, sometimes ending a relationship is easy. The feelings that go along with an easy break up sometimes feel like they aren’t real feelings because we’ve been told for so long that if a relationship was important to us then the ending must be terrible to go through.

My easiest relationship to end was with a girl I dated in college. Keri was sweet and nice and went out of her way to be a great girlfriend. I was attracted to her physically. She was shorter than me and very slender, with long blonde hair and a cornfed, Iowa girl charm that could win anyone over. But even with all that, we never really clicked. There was something off between us from the very beginning.

Just because ending our relationship was easy, didn’t mean it was a relationship that meant nothing to me. I hated ending the relationship but knew that it would be better to end it as friends than to drag it out, knowing we wouldn’t be a long term match.

Keri is still a friend of mine and went on to marry an amazing woman. There isn’t a doubt in my mind that I didn’t do the right thing by breaking up with her. Even though it was easy on me, it wasn’t easy on Keri. Remember that even if it isn’t hard for you, it may be hard for the person you are splitting up with. There is a certain amount of understanding and empathy that should be a part of every breakup.

Every Relationship is Different

While we often find ourselves comparing past lovers with current ones, every relationship is unique and meaningful in its own way. Up until my relationship with my current partner, I had two meaningful relationships. One was with a woman and one with a man. Every person I dated after them instantly was compared to one or the other. When I would date a woman I would compare them to the girl I fell in love with and the same for the men I dated.

This is a common mistake people make and of which I am extremely guilty. Even now, in my current relationship, I sometimes find myself comparing our situation to relationships in the past. I will think about the way my ex-boyfriend would have said something or how he would have handled a situation differently. More often than not, I know that I have a better relationship with my current boyfriend than I did with my ex-boyfriend. But even though I know that I have a healthier, happier relationship now, there shouldn’t be any reason for me to compare them at all.

Every relationship is its own entity. Comparison is unfair between people that we have and will date. Not only does it feed into the idea that “the grass is greener” or that it would have been better with one from the past than it is with who you are currently with, but it can also negatively affect the mindset of your current partner.

In the same way that you shouldn’t compare what happens in one relationship to another, you shouldn’t compare how one relationship ends with another. Even if one relationship has a loud, disastrous, angry ending doesn’t mean that it meant more than one that ended civilly. How a relationship ends doesn’t always signal how meaningful, good or bad a relationship was.

Most people would assume a relationship with a bad ending was a bad relationship, but that isn’t always true. That relationship that ended in a cascade of fights and anger might not have been bad or been less meaningful.

Whether the ending is loud and earthshaking or a calm conversation with the promise to remain friends, the best thing to do is to realize that every relationship is different, beginning, middle, and end.

Only You Will Know

If you’re reading this article odds are you are trying to figure out how to tell if your relationship is waning or perhaps even over. As a person who reads too much and researches everything, I have found myself late at night, scrolling through articles just like this one. That is probably your first clue that perhaps it is time to part ways with your partner.

Talking to family and friends, while it may help you figure out what it is you should do, should only be used to decide what it is you truly want.

Only you and your partner know the entire ins and outs of your relationship. Others on the outside may have their own opinions, but they can’t decide what is best for you. Only you can.

So when your scrolling through articles much like this one, remember that you can seek out advice from people you trust and read stories that talk about red flags and reasons to leave, but you are the only one that will be able to see what is the right step for you.

There, unfortunately, isn’t a tried and true way to know that it is time to bring your relationship to an end. Only you will know if it is time to throw in the towel and move on. The best thing you can do is to discuss your feelings with your partner and try to come to a solution together.

If that isn’t possible and your partner is against talking things through with you then that is a large red warning sign to head in the opposite direction.

Breaking up or even thinking about it is hard, but in the long run, contemplating whether or not you want to make a future with your current partner is an important step. Remember that only you will know what is truly right for you. No article, friend, website, or family member can make this decision for you. But in the end, you will know when a relationship is over and it’s time to make a fresh start.